Aims: This aim of this paper is to identify the barriers that hinder women’s advancement in the management hierarchy in the financial sector (both banking and insurance) in Republic of North Macedonia, a country historically known for its masculine culture and stereotype–driven expectations regarding the role of woman in the society. Study design: Original research paper. Analytical observational, cross-sectional study. Place and duration of study: The research sample was consisted of male and female employees from banking and insurance sectors in North Macedonia in March 2021. Methodology: A questionnaire was designed to achieve the objectives of the study in which the items for the barriers have been measured using 5–points Likert scale. The reliability and validity analyses were conducted; descriptive analysis was used to describe the characteristics of the sample as well as the strength and direction of the relationship between the variables, and ANOVA test was employed to examine the proposed three hypotheses. Results: The obtained results of Cronbach’s alpha are 0.821, 0.836 0.918 for individual, organizational and cultural factors, respectively. The results suggest a significant difference among the barriers (individual, organizational and cultural factors) that prevent employees from obtaining upper–level positions in the organizations due to gender (p <0.001), whereas no significant difference was found among the barriers that prevent employees from obtaining upper–level positions due to age and work experience. Conclusion: The obtained results call for attention to existence of gender disparities and gender inequalities in many areas of life, particularly in the labor market, when climbing up the corporate ladder. The study contributes to the literature by providing new practical insights into gender diversity initiatives focusing on growth and development aspects of female employees by breaking the glass ceiling and recognizing their competencies, qualifications, and achievement as well as giving them prospects for upward mobility.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine Macedonian managers’ behavior and the strategy they most often have facing a conflict situation at work. Design/methodology/approach: Research instrument in a form of questionnaire was used to obtain data about strategies for managing conflict. For assessing which of the five modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating Macedonian managers’ use we used Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode instrument. Findings: The results from the study give new insights in the managerial mind, providing information about managers’ approaches they have facing problems and conflict situations. Research limitations/implications: There is a literature gap in the area of organizational behavior studies in Macedonia. The results from the survey can be used for comparing the profile of Macedonian managers with managers from other countries. Practical implications: This study will increase the understanding of how managers’ behavior is connected with conflict management styles. Also, the results from the study can be used in creating new teams and predicting behavior based on the styles used in learning and conflict resolution. Originality/value: This research contributes to the field of organizational behavior by offering support and new findings. This study adds to the body of literature in what is considered relatively new and unexplored area of study in Macedonia. Also, this study will provide information about the behavior Macedonian managers have and clearer picture of their managerial style.
Entrepreneurial decision-making is often characterized by unrealistic optimism. This so-called “overconfidence bias” has consequently received an increasing amount attention from the authors of literature on entrepreneurship research. Most empirical studies, however, that target the overconfidence bias have been conducted with students or samples from the general population. This study contributes to the entrepreneurial decision-making literature by explicitly targeting entrepreneurs from Austria and North Macedonia (n = 187), defined as individuals who have started their own businesses or are in the process of doing so. The entrepreneurs were asked to complete a general-knowledge questionnaire and to estimate the accuracy of their answers. The results suggest that the most of these entrepreneurs exhibit overconfidence (and some, underconfidence) with regard to the accuracy of their knowledge. Significant differences were observed between the bias scores and confidence scores of the Austrian and Macedonian respondents, but not the accuracy scores. The so-called “hard-easy effect,” which indicates that individuals display overconfidence when answering hard questions, but underconfidence when answering easy questions, was observed among the Austrian but not among the Macedonian entrepreneurs.
Most of the economic activities are becoming highly digital. In the past several years changes in the technological improvements and financial innovations had an enormous impact on the modern financial system. Worldwide, the banking industry has changed and integrated the financial technology (FinTech) in its everyday routine. Nowadays, for some financial members FinTech provides a big threat and a challenge for the traditional banking, while for some others it provides an opportunity for more flexibility, better service functionality and higher service quality. Overall, banks adopt innovations to satisfy customers’ demands, despite the risks and challenges imposed from FinTech and new financial product development (NFPD). In general banks benefit from opportunities of the new product development in the aspect of allocating more efficiently the resources, reduction in transaction costs, promotion, revenue growth and profitability. The aim and objective of this paper is to identify and evaluate the main risks related to development of FinTech and financial innovations that banks are exposed to (on micro and macro level), and to provide recommendations on the reduction of those risks and controlling them. Based on literature review, researches proved that one of the major obstacle to firm`s innovativeness is the negative impact of the new financial product development on banking risks. It is recommended that in times of technological boom commercial banks should invest their available funds in suitable techniques for successfully accepting new financial product development.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.